Swedish Missiles. Emirati Armored Trucks. The Ukrainian Army’s Newest Mechanized Brigade Has A Weird Mix Of Weapons.

The Ukrainian army has been forming new mechanized brigades as fast as it can recruit, train and equip the troops. It’s a sometimes messy process as the government in Kyiv struggles to fight the war with forces it already has, while also preparing new forces for the war’s next phase.

The 88th Mechanized Brigade might be the newest Ukrainian mechanized formation. Its table of organization and equipment is … weird. Soviet-made anti-aircraft and anti-tank guns from the early 1960s. Modern Swedish air-defense missiles. The latest Emirati armored trucks.

The 88th Mechanized Brigade stood up in early 2023 after recruiting troops “from different parts of Ukraine, of different ages, with different life experiences,” the unit stated on Telegram.

It joins as many as 40 other mechanized brigades in comprising the bulk of Ukraine’s land forces. A brigade might have three or four front-line battalions, each with several hundred troops and dozens of armored vehicles. Artillery, air-defense and engineering battalions and companies usually round out a brigade’s force structure.

Ukraine’s army has expanded faster than Ukrainian industry can equip it with newly built or reconditioned Soviet-style hardware. Increasingly, the Ukrainians get their heavy weaponry from abroad. New foreign weaponry complementing older ex-Soviet gear.

The 88th Mechanized Brigade exemplifies this uniquely Ukrainian force mix. Its soldiers carry AK-style assault weapons. But their crew-served weapons and vehicles are an ecclectic blend of East and West.

We can confirm, from the brigade’s Telegram account, that it’s been training to use the MT-12 100-millimeter anti-tank gun.

The MT-12 is a Soviet classic from 1960. Ukrainian gunners not only use the gun in its traditional direct-fire role targeting enemy tanks from two miles away, they also angle it high so it can double as a howitzer—albeit a short-range one. Ukrainian technicians have mounted spare MT-12s on MT-LB armored tractors.

The MT-12 isn’t the 88th’s only anti-tank weapon. The brigade has Ukrainian-made Stugna-P missiles, as well. A Stugna-P can range as far as three miles.

The 88th Mechanized Brigade is training on the ZU-23-2 towed anti-aircraft gun. The ZU-23-2 is a side-by-side pair of fast-firing 23-millimeter cannons that entered service with the Soviet army back in 1960.

With its 1.5-mile range and manual sights, the ZU-23-2 is a middle anti-aircraft gun. But point it at the targets on the ground, and it makes a devastating infantry-support weapon.

The brigade doesn’t need the ZU-23-2 to defend it from aerial attacks. For that, it has Swedish-made RBS-70 shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles. The missile rides a laser beam out to a range of five miles. The original RBS-70 entered service in 1977; upgrades have added speed and range and improved the guidance.

It’s not totally clear what vehicles the 88th Mechanized Brigade rides in. The brigade has posted photos of up-armored American Humvees and brand-new Panthera F9 mine-resistant armored trucks from the United Arab Emirates.

The trucks can move infantry around the battlefield, but they’re too lightly armored and too lightly armed for direct combat. Most Ukrainian mechanized brigades deploy a mix of Soviet-style T-64 or T-72 tanks and BMP fighting vehicles. It seems the 88th Mechanized Brigade has locally-upgraded T-64BVs and old BMP-1s—but it’s hard to say for sure.

The brigade in a March 3 Telegram post hinted that it might be in line for some of the roughly 60 Leopard 2 tanks that Germany, Poland, Spain and other European countries have pledged to Ukraine. “The first 14 Leopard 2 tanks from our Polish brothers arrived on the territory of Ukraine,” the 88th stated. “Who do you think will have them soon?”

That might have been trolling. There are indications that the Leopard 2s will reequip one of the Ukrainian army’s armored brigades—perhaps the battle-hardened 4th Tank Brigade, which has spent much of the last year fighting in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region.

We don’t know yet when and where the 88th Mechanized Brigade will enter combat. It’s possible Kyiv is holding the brigade in reserve for a widely-anticipated spring offensive.